Among paunches and spires A study of 1960- and 2000 centurys detective novels from a gender perspective.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine how the gender structure appears in detective novels and in the society during the 1960s and 2000s. We have a pre-understanding that the gender structure is more distinct in the earlier books and we will investigate this by looking at the two aspects occupation and family role. We find this to be an important question to notice because society today isnt equal between the sexes. Our study is based on a theory of Yvonne Hirdmans, she claims that the man is the dominant part and the woman is in an inferior position. We apply a stereotype model she has conceived and we try to categorize the characters in the books we have analysed into this model. In the books we have analysed we have found that women are described as the weaker sex and separated from the males. They are also described by their looks, which we cannot notice when the men are introduced. We found that we could not see the gender structure clearly in the detective novels by looking at the aspects occupation and family role; we also had to look at other aspects such as the characters images. By applying Yvonne Hirdmans stereotype model we could see a clear picture of the men while the women were more indistinct. This results in that men can more easily identify themselves with the male main character, than women can do with the female characters.Uppsatsnivå: